UPDATED: Woman severely beaten, flown to hospital for injuries

MARY ESTHER — A woman was hospitalized and a man was jailed Wednesday morning after he attacked her outside their home, according to the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office.

Sheriff’s deputies were called to the home on Kathy Court about 6 a.m. after one of the woman’s children saw his mother lying on the ground outside gasping and Arnold J. Knight standing nearby with an “object in his hand,” according to Knight’s arrest report.

The son said he ran into the house scared after Knight asked him, “What do you want?”

After locking the door behind him, he woke up his sister and called 911.

The boy said it looked as if Knight was armed with a crowbar, the report stated.

When deputies arrived, the 58-year-old woman was inside on a couch with wounds on her head and face. Her eyes were swollen shut.

She was airlifted to Sacred Heart Hospital in Pensacola, according Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Michele Nicholson.

Knight, 46, had left the scene by the time deputies arrived.

The son told deputies that his mother had been in a relationship with Knight since June or July and he had moved into their home about the same time, the report stated.

When deputies interviewed the woman at the hospital, she said Knight attacked her while she was walking to her vehicle to take her son to school.

As she approached the vehicle, she heard a trash can move and saw Knight. Before she could flee, he struck her with something and she lost consciousness, she said.

On Tuesday night, a temporary injunction for protection had been granted to her against Knight.

Deputies found a 12- to 16-inch steel pipe with blood on it a ditch near the home.

Knight was found later and charged with attempted murder.

He previously had been arrested on a similar charge in Alabama and was on probation for possession of marijuana and for shooting his ex-girlfriend’s child, the report stated.